Discussion Group FAQ

Q. Why am I not seeing my posts in my newsreader?

A. First, make sure that you are posting to the right news server. If you are and you post a message to a Bentley discussion group and the post does not appear right away, it could be that your newsreader did not send the post before you refreshed the discussion group. To prevent this from happening, wait to make sure that the Outbox in your reader is empty before resetting the discussion group or going to another discussion group and re-entering the one with your new post.

There are other reasons why posts do not show up:

Very rarely, a post may be removed (note that test posts to bentley.testposts are removed on a regular basis).
Your local newsreader may have a setting that allows you to view only posts that are less than a certain number of days old. Or, it may delete downloaded messages from your local cache after they are read or after a certain number of days.
If you use Outlook Express, it might need to be repaired. There is some information on the Microsoft Web site regarding this.
Something might have happened to your newsreader's local cache and it needs to be reset. If you use Outlook Express, follow these steps:

Select a discussion group from the list of folders.
Right click on that discussion group (in the folder list) and select Properties.
Select the Local File tab.
Click the Reset pushbutton in the Local File tab.
If prompted to reset and delete all locally cached messages, click Yes.
Click Ok.
Then select View > Reset (or press F5).

Note that the result of resetting your newsreader's local cache will be seeing all posts to that discussion group (based on your newsreader's settings), so if you have watch flags set for particular posts or threads, those will be cleared.

If you see your post once but not again, the most likely explanation is that your news reader is configured to show only unread messages. Look under the Options menu or the View menu to find how to change which messages are displayed.

Outlook Express also has a "quirk" in that articles with the same subject (minus the RE: prefix) will all be grouped together into the same thread regardless of when the articles were posted. If your newsreader is set up to show all articles, a recent article may be included as part of a much earlier thread.

If you have checked all of the above and you still do not see your article, the SPAM filter utility for the discussion groups may have mistakenly interpreted your article as SPAM. If you suspect this to be the case, please send us a note including the subject of the article, which discussion group you posted it to, and the approximate time that you posted it. We will investigate each request and make the appropriate adjustments to the SPAM filter.

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Q. Is there a way to reference a previous post using a URL?

A. Yes. If you are accessing the discussion groups through a newsreader and you have the ID for the post(found in each post's properties), you can "create" a URL using the syntax "news://discussion.bentley.com/messageID." For example:

news://discussion.bentley.com/64P192m4CHA.2120@prdweb004.viecon.com.

Notes:

If you do not have a specific server name included between "news:" and the "messageID" within the created URL, your newsreader will try to locate the post on the server that you specified as the "default" discussion group server in your newsreader. If discussion.bentley.com is the default, then that is where the newsreader will search for the specified message. If no discussion group server is specified and you have something other than discussion.bentley.com specified as the default, then you will not be able to locate the message, since the messageID is specific to discussion.bentley.com.

Using news://discussion.bentley.com/ for each post makes sure that your newsreader will search discussion.bentley.com for the post regardless of what your newsreader's default discussion group server is.
If the first and last characters of the messageID are < and > respectively, those characters should not be included in the resulting URL. For example, <64P192m4CHA.2120@prdweb004.viecon.com> should be entered as 64P192m4CHA.2120@prdweb004.viecon.com.

If you are accessing the discussion groups through a Web browser like Internet Explorer, you can put your cursor over the post that you want to reference, do a right-click, then Copy Shortcut, and the URL for that specific post will be placed in the clipboard to paste into other posts, documents, etc. If you are interested in all the articles related to a specific post, select the article. When it displays in the lower right frame, put your cursor over the Related Articles link, do a right-click, then Copy Shortcut, and the URL for all articles related to that specific post will be placed in the clipboard to paste into other posts, documents, etc.

Note that if you do not have a newsreader like Outlook Express installed, you will not be able to reference any links that start with news://... from the Web interface.

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Q. I do not see all the discussion groups that are listed in the discussion group directory in my newsreader. What is wrong?

A. In some situations, you may need to reset the list of discussion groups in your newsreader. For example, if you are using Outlook Express, follow these steps:

Select a discussion group server from the list of folders.
Press <Ctrl>W (a Discussion Groups Subscriptions dialog should appear).
Click the Reset List pushbutton.

New discussion groups should then appear in the list. You can then subscribe to the ones that you want by simply double-clicking on the respective discussion group name. Click OK when finished and you should then be able to access the discussion groups selected.

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Q. Do I need a user/account name and password to access the Bentley discussion groups?

A. No, you do not. The discussion.bentley.com server does not require a user/account name and password. (If you were previously using a user/account name and password, you no longer need to use them.)

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Q. Do I have to be a SELECT subscriber to access the Bentley discussion groups?

A. No, the discussion groups are open to all.

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Q. When I try to connect to the Bentley news server with my newsreader, I get an error that says "Unable to connect to server," or, "There is no DNS entry." Why?

A. You may be behind a corporate firewall that has access blocked on port 119, the NNTP port. You will need to talk to your network administrator about opening your firewall on port 119. If you are not behind a firewall, there could be a problem with your local DNS. Contact your network administrator or ISP about this. Another option is to use the Bentley discussion group Web interface.

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Q. Why can't I save any attachments to postings from my newsreader?

A. If you are using Outlook Express 6, the security setting in Tools > Options > Security > "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" is likely enabled -- it is the default setting. Disabling that toggle should allow you to download attachments. NOTE: Please check with your system/computer administrator before disabling this setting.

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Q. Why do I only see a certain number of postings in Outlook Express?

A. This is likely due to a setting on your newsreader that only downloads a certain number of messages/posts at a time. In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options and click on the Read tab. In the newsgroup, you should see a toggle for "Get x headers at a time", where x is configurable. This defines how many headers will get downloaded at a time. You can increase that number. If you uncheck the toggle, all message headers will get downloaded. The first time you get into a discussion group, all messages up to this number will get downloaded (actually, it is just the headers, as downloading all messages at the same time could take quite a while in some of the discussion groups). You can *get* more messages by going to Tools > "Get Next x Headers", where x is what you set in the Tools > Options > Read.

Another possibility is a setting that deletes messages/posts from your local cache after a certain number of days. In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options and click on the Maintenance tab. Disable the toggles for "Delete read message bodies in discussion groups" and "Delete news messages x days after being downloaded".

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Q. If I post something in the Bentley discussion groups, what is the best way to minimize getting SPAM?

A. If you post anything to any discussion group, there is a chance that your reply-to address will be harvested by SPAMmers -- that is an unfortunate reality in today's connected world. However, that does not mean that you should not post. There are various actions that you can take to minimize an increase in SPAM. One way is to mangle your reply-to address, but that method is losing its effect as e-mail harvesting programs are getting better and better at unmangling e-mail addresses. Another option is to use a SPAM filter in your e-mail client. Outlook 2003 has some pretty good abilities built in, but other plug-ins exist. For example SpamBayes is a pretty good option worth considering.

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Q. What is the difference between multi-posting and cross-posting?

A. Suppose you decide to post an article asking a question that people who regularly visit three particular discussion groups would really like to read. If you prepare an article and send it out three times, once to each group, then folks who visit those three discussion groups will download it three times and come across it three times as an unread article. This could result in three parallel but separate *threads*. That is inefficient and, in some parts of the world, an unnecessary cost. That is multi-posting.

Alternatively, you could send it out once, and in the Newsgroups line of your newsreader, you could put the three discussion groups that you want to article to go to at the same time (i.e. bentley.general,bentley.microstation.v8.general,bentley.administration). That will result in the article only being downloaded once (assuming you are using reasonable software :). The article will appear in each group, but once it has been read any one group, it will be marked as read in all of them. That is cross-posting.

Please note that although cross-posting is being recommended here, cross-posting sometimes is not appropriate because of the tendency to cross-post to irrelevant discussion groups (in some instances to do little more than to gain more attention to the article). You should only cross-post if you are sure your article is suitable for the different discussion groups you are posting it to. Multi-posting, on the other hand, has no advantages whatsoever and should never be done.

Note that the Web interface does not support cross-posting at this time, so you should post your article to the single, most relevant discussion group.

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Q. Why does my article get rejected when I try to include a large attachment?

A. An article will be rejected by our servers if its total attachments are larger than 4MB -- the reason for this is explained here. If you are attempting to provide a sample data set with regard to a particular issue, we recommend paring the data set down to the absolute minimum that still demonstrates the issue -- this really helps in any investigation. If it is not possible to minimize the data set, we recommend uploading the file (or archived data set) to our secure ftp site and posting the name of the file you uploaded to ensure that we get the right file. Information regarding our secure ftp site can be found here. If you are attempting to attach a screen shot image, PLEASE DO NOT USE BMP FORMAT. We recommend using JPEG, GIF, or PNG formats when saving the file from a graphics program (i.e. Paint in Windows) as that significantly reduces the size of the image file on your hard disk, yet the resulting image remains clear enough to show what is necessary.

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Q. Are the Bentley discussion groups SPAM-free?

A. Unfortunately, they are not. The frequency and number of articles and groups that this worthless information gets posted to appear to be on the increase -- and the trend does not show any signs of letting up, either. The current discussion.bentley.com system offers very basic SPAM countermeasures, which are losing their effectiveness with the "craftiness" (albeit misdirected) of the simple, lowly creatures many call SPAMmers. When we move to a new system (ETA later in 2007), this should become much less of an issue, but in the mean time, SPAM is something we will all have to begrudgingly deal with. That said, we do offer the following advice regarding SPAM in the Bentley discussion groups:

If you see an article that looks like SPAM, it probably is, so ignore it -- it will not last long on our system. Although we might not get to it immediately, SPAM articles are canceled from our server as soon as they are discovered... we remain diligent at being on the look out for SPAM 24/7/365.
Do not reply to SPAM -- there is no need to call attention to it nor the low-lifes who post it. Also, do not reply to the person who posted the article -- most SPAM articles have fake or spoofed Reply-To addresses, or worse, you could get sucked into a situation that you wished you had never gotten involved with. Save your bytes for something useful.

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Commonly asked questions

The Bentley discussion groups are a great place to learn new tips and tricks with Bentley products, and to hear the frank views of other users. Also, your question may have already been answered!

Here are some quick links to commonly asked questions:

How can I...

...find out what is required to run Bentley products?
...get information placed on newly created levels in a design to display automatically when those designs are referenced in other designs?
...display DWG text properly in Bentley View?
...flatten some or all information in a 3D model to the same elevation?
...merge all or parts of two GEOPAK GPK files?
...create the animated GIFs that are sometimes attached to discussion group postings?
...automatically load a VBA project?
...start a VBA macro when a DGN file is opened?
...start a VBA macro when a DGN file is closed?
...change Coordinate Readout in a DGN file?
...make many elements in your design snappable at the same time?
...share customizations in a user interface with your colleagues?
...use a color picker item on a form in MicroStation VBA?

To search the discussion groups for other answers, use our custom Google search.

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